


The Breakfast Club

by sobriquet



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Four-Way Auspisticeship, Multi, armchair psychology, indelible sass
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-11-24 01:09:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/628590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sobriquet/pseuds/sobriquet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After too much time spent cooped up on the meteor together, Dave and Karkat's perpetual arguing has begun to verge dangerously on caliginous flirting - or so Kanaya believes, and attempts to prevent, with the help of Rose's dabbling in psychology.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: potentially subject to minor retconned revision. Sorry about that.

DAVE: dude  
DAVE: you can dis me all you want and call me whatever weird ass xenomorphic lingo shit you can think of  
DAVE: you can take a wimpy swing at my beautiful face with those pathetic flapping noodles you call arms  
DAVE: hell you can even actually punch me  
DAVE: but you dont fuckin dare put the hate on my man snoop  
KARKAT: OK, FIRST OF ALL, YOU’RE A RACIST ASSHOLE.  
KARKAT: SECOND, DON’T TEMPT ME, BECAUSE I WILL GLADLY TAKE UP YOUR OFFER TO WIPE THAT NUB-GRINDINGLY OBNOXIOUS SMIRK OFF YOUR FACE. AND IT WILL BE A PUNCH TO END ALL PUNCHES, YOU CAN BET YOUR SCRAWNY HUMAN ASS ON THAT.  
KARKAT: THIS PUNCH WILL BE SO “HELLA SICK” THAT IT WILL LITERALLY FLAY THE SQUISHY SALLOW FLESH FROM YOUR JOINTED MARROW FRAME. YOU WILL WEEP WITH JOY AT THE SIGHT OF SUCH A GLORIOUS PUNCH, AND YOUR TEARS WILL BE COMPRISED OF YOUR MELTING LOOKSTUBS.  
KARKAT: THIRD, YOUR “SNOOP DOGG” IS LEGITIMATELY THE SHITTIEST EXCUSE FOR WHATEVER LAME HUMAN NOTION OF TALENT YOU SEEM TO HAVE, WHICH IS VERY LITTLE, AND YOU FUCKING KNOW IT. I’VE HEARD WRIGGLERS EXCRETING BETTER LYRICS THAN THAT DOUCHEBAG IN THE MADDENING THROES OF THEIR FIRST INFANT NIGHTMARES.  
DAVE: thank you for describing in such great detail how you listen to farting worm babies  
KARKAT: AND YOU’RE THE ONE WITH FUCKING NOODLES FOR ARMS.  
DAVE: how do you even know were talking about the same kind of noodles here  
DAVE: because i mean on earth a noodle is a mythical creature with stumpy horns and half a dick and the combined strength of six paralyzed weasels  
DAVE: and for all i know youve actually got some weird as hell alien noodle thats like a long edible string made of carbohydrates and grains and other shit  
KARKAT: OH, JUST SHUT YOUR FUCKING WORD TRAP ALREADY.

[ROSE]  
You can hear them arguing from three rooms over, though you don’t so much hear Dave’s muttered retorts as simply assume that they fill the gaps in Karkat’s piercing tirade. You glance across the room to see Kanaya echoing your posture: curled up comfortably in a lumpy troll-style chair, book in hand forgotten. She has her gaze fixed on the wall through which the shouting pervades, as if concentration will lend the sound a more visible form. She is sitting perfectly still, and you can practically see the synapses and gears working their way through her head, mapping out quarrel-dissolution tactics. You lay your book down and resign yourself to the shattered peace to which you have become accustomed.

ROSE: Kanaya.  
KANAYA: Shhhh  
KANAYA: Im Trying To Gauge How Serious They Are This Time  
ROSE: Are you still hellbent on mediating between them? I thought I clearly explained how unlikely we humans are to ascribe to your romantic divisions. It’s just not the way we’re wired.  
KANAYA: Just Because You Personally Have Not Done So Does Not Negate The Possibility For Dave  
KANAYA: Far Be It From Me To Suggest That He Is Actively Pursuing A Caliginous Relationship With Karkat Of All People  
KANAYA: But I Prefer To Entertain Likelihoods In Advance Rather Than Regret Inaction Later  
KANAYA: And Right Now My Foresight Suggests That Maybe I Should Step In Before The Situation Worsens  
ROSE: What are you, the marriage counselor from the Black Lagoon?  
KANAYA: Not Yet And Lets Keep It That Way

She sets her book down and exits the room in a flurry of floor-length skirt. More curious than you’re willing to admit, you follow her down the hall to the common room, to the eye of the storm. Dave and Karkat sit and stand, respectively, in the center of the room – a relatively clean center surrounded the chaos of neglectful teenage housekeeping.

Karkat stands at the table with his hands pressed to the surface, building a shell around himself with layers upon layers of shouted protests and insults as if insulating himself against siege. But his presumed attacker merely slouches in a chair across the way, apparently focused on picking more interesting dirt from under his fingernails. The picture of detachment, Dave tosses his words carelessly onto the table, dropping them like refuse and leaving Karkat to make sense of them. It’s an act you know well, because you taught it to him.

KARKAT: NO, SNOOP DOGG DOES NOT REMOTELY TRUMP A SINGLE ALTERNIAN SLAM POET. THEY MAY ALL SUCK, BUT SNOOP IS THE DRAIN OF THE WORLD, BECAUSE HE SUCKS SO MUCH THAT HE LITERALLY ABSORBS EVERYTHING ELSE.  
DAVE: if your slam poets are so bad why are you defending them  
DAVE: sounds like you trolls got the short end of the talent stick here  
KARKAT: BECAUSE THEIR TALENT SURPASSES QUALITY, NUB-SMEAR. I WOULDN’T EXPECT A MORON LIKE YOU TO GET THE CONCEPT. IT’S NOT MY FAULT YOUR THINK PAN IS SO SHALLOW AND SHRIVELED UP THAT YOU WOULDN’T RECOGNIZE REAL TALENT IF IT KIDNAPPED YOUR SISTER AND KICKED YOU IN THE SHAME GLOBES.  
KARKAT: YOU’RE JUST TOO BLIND TO TROLL CREATIVITY TO UNDERSTAND HOW SUPERIOR IT IS, BECAUSE YOU’RE TOO BUSY FUCKING AROUND WITH YOUR SPONGE UP YOUR SPINAL CREVICE.  
DAVE: troll creativity right  
DAVE: this coming from the guy whos physically incapable of coming up with insults that dont refer to asses in one way or another  
DAVE: i mean really i know my ass is truly majestic but give it a break  
DAVE: a real gentleman wouldnt manhandle the untarnished reputation of my collectors item of a butt  
KARKAT: OH WELL FUCKING EXCUSE ME—  
DAVE: dragging it through the proverbial mud and calling it really stupid names and threatening it like some overzealous supervillain on his first big heist  
DAVE: seriously dude didnt they teach you that tormenting the kid or butt or whatever you like only works in third grade  
DAVE: after that its not cute, its just sad  
KARKAT: YOU’RE THE ONE THAT’S—  
DAVE: if youre gonna be constantly ragging on my ass like a lovelorn preteen why dont you act like a real man and ask it out  
DAVE: just warn me ahead of time so i can come up with a really crushing rejection  
KARKAT: YOU ARE NOT SERIOUSLY SUGGESTING THAT I—  
KANAYA: I Believe This Is My Cue  
KARKAT: —OH, HELL NO. BUTT OUT, FUSSYFANGS.  
KANAYA: Point Number One Only One Person Is Permitted To Call Me Fussyfangs And She Is Neither You Nor Alive  
KANAYA: Point Number Two You Are Clearly Audible Across The Meteor If Not Across The Entirety Of Paradox Space So I Am Taking It As My Prerogative To “Butt In”  
ROSE: Point number three, your particular choice of words there seems to prove Dave’s exact point. Something on your mind, Karkat?

As he spews his typical incomprehensible babble of rage, you and Kanaya share a glance and a few whispered words.

KANAYA: (I Was Under The Impression You Thought Auspisticizing Between Them Would Be Pointless)  
ROSE: (I did, but now I can see this is going to be so much more fun than I anticipated.)  
DAVE: what are you ladies conniving about this time  
DAVE: planning a heist  
DAVE: plotting a murder  
DAVE: god i hope its karkats  
DAVE: hell ill even accept it if its mine so i dont have to put up with this bullshit anymore  
DAVE: a guy can only handle so much you know  
ROSE: What’s this? Has the rock-solid Strider finally cracked? Has the unrufflable become ruffled?  
DAVE: im not fucking ruffled  
DAVE: these feathers are as smooth as a goddamn penguin ok  
DAVE: smooth as a penguin sliding down an ice hill drinking a fucking smoothie  
DAVE: smoother than—  
KANAYA: Yes Dave We Get It  
KANAYA: You Are As Slick As Potable Liquid Off The Posterior Plane Of The Proverbial Quackbeast  
KANAYA: Now Please Shut Up For One Minute  
KARKAT: IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME—  
KANAYA: You Too Karkat  
KANAYA: It Has Come To My Attention That A Nearly Unhealthy Amount Of Your Time Has Become Devoted To Arguing  
KANAYA: Allow Me To Explain The Negative Impacts Of This Behavior  
KANAYA: Firstly It Is Completely Unproductive And There Are A Lot Of More Important Things You Could Be Doing  
KANAYA: Since Youve Repeatedly Refused To Join Rose And Me For Our Book Club Meetings Those Other Things Are Entirely Up To You To Figure Out  
KANAYA: Though I Have To Say Youre Really Missing Out On Some Excellent And Highly Informative Romantic Literature—  
ROSE: Kanaya.  
KANAYA: Right Sorry  
KANAYA: Secondly I Am Increasingly Concerned That You Two Are In Need Of Auspisticizing And I Am Appointing Myself To The Position  
KANAYA: No Ifs Ands Or Buts About It  
KARKAT: IF YOU SERIOUSLY THINK—  
KANAYA: No  
DAVE: and what the hell—  
KANAYA: No  
KARKAT: BUT THAT’S THE DUMBEST—  
KANAYA: What The Fuck Did I Just Say  
DAVE: rose please tell me this is some elaborate and incredibly stupid prank john set up like two years ago  
DAVE: like hey guys you know what would be fucking hilarious  
DAVE: no man what  
DAVE: lets set dave up so he gets stuck on a meteor with ragequit mcgee and then convince rose and kanaya to act like theyre flirting  
DAVE: thats the best fucking prank anybody ever planned  
DAVE: and just wait til he finds out what i did with his shoelaces  
ROSE: Are you done?  
DAVE: yeah  
ROSE: Allow me to elaborate, in terms perhaps a little more understandable to you. I’m not entirely convinced that kismesis as Kanaya has described it is possible for humans, but we’d like to avoid discovering at what magnitude it actually does manifest.  
DAVE: kismesis thats the weird angry one  
ROSE: Correct.  
DAVE: so let me get this straight  
DAVE: you think i hate karkat so much that i want to get into his dorky hitched-up pants  
ROSE: I believe that is a basic, if crude, summary of the quadrant, yes.  
DAVE: welp  
DAVE: excuse me while i find somewhere to puke  
KARKAT: WOW, FOR ONCE WE ACTUALLY AGREE ON SOMETHING, BECAUSE THAT’S LITERALLY THE BIGGEST STEAMING PILE OF PUTREFYING HORSEBEASTSHIT TO EVER INVADE MY AURICULAR SPONGE CLOTS.  
KARKAT: I MAY HATE YOUR FILTHY INNARDS, DAVE, BUT I DON’T HATE YOU THAT MUCH.  
DAVE: aw karkat youre breaking my heart here  
ROSE: Then you won’t mind if we just help keep the breach open, if you’ll pardon the expression.  
KANAYA: Meet Us Here Tomorrow At This Time  
KANAYA: And If You Dont  
KANAYA: Ill Find You

She fixes them with a stare that immediately clarifies the unspoken threat. Karkat crosses his arms and looks away. Dave rolls his eyes (presumably) behind his shades. In the end, though, they agree. Kanaya turns on her heel without another word, but you can’t help tipping the guys an enormous conspiratorial wink as you follow suit. You barely catch them both flipping you the bird out of the corner of your eye, and you smile to yourself all the way down the hall.

Back in Kanaya’s room, you find yourself taking evasive maneuvers to avoid the sudden disarray of books on the floor. Kanaya stands at her now half-empty bookshelf, tomes in hand, determination gleaming in her eyes.

ROSE: What’s all this?  
KANAYA: Miss Lalonde  
KANAYA: I Believe Its Time To Amplify Your Education Regarding The Ashen Conciliatory and Black Concupiscent Quadrants  
ROSE: Oh, Miss Maryam. You always know just what to say.

She joins you on your chair with a pile of books, and you dive into the exploration of alien romance.


	2. Chapter 2

_From the journal of Rose Lalonde:_  
 _Today Kanaya and I take the first uneasy steps towards auspisticizing between Dave and Karkat. According to Kanaya, the relationship is supposed to be only three people – a kind of vitiating ménage a trois – but I believe there’s no harm in supplying my input. She spent some time last night giving me a surprising amount of detail on the matter, and though she kept most of the personal datum confidential, I’m led to believe she has more experience in this field than I had assumed; though her tone was exceptionally wistful at some points, so I may have mistaken memory of unrequited pursuit for nostalgia. In any case, I see the ashen quadrant as something of an alternative form of couples’ therapy, in which the objective is to avoid the couple forming altogether, and in which the counselor is personally invested as well. Rather like the relationship of Freud, Jung, and Spielrein, come to think of it. Perhaps we humans are not exempt after all._

You hear Kanaya calling from down the hall, and sweep your gathered materials into your arms before heading out to meet her. Unsure what to expect, you’ve brought two journals, three pens, several of your favorite volumes on psychology, and an unabridged quadrant encyclopedia. You dump the bundle unceremoniously on the table, casting a wry eye on the untidy room, which appears to have suffered from an increase in entropy overnight. In the center, however, Kanaya has set up the rectangular table with a chair on each side. The placement lends the room a surprising air of professionalism despite the mess, and you take note of Kanaya’s nigh-imperceptible smile of pride. 

ROSE: But, my dear Kanaya, you’re missing all the most important elements! Where’s the chaise, upon which the patient may lay out all his most vital vulnerabilities? And the armchair, whence my personal psychology license derives?  
KANAYA: Im Glad You Like It

You hand Kanaya a notebook and pen, offering to share your own notes later. She perches in a seat on one of the long sides of the table, and you take the place across from her, leaving a decent barrier of space between the counseled parties. This space is important, Kanaya explained last night; personal proximity only increases tension. Therefore the auspistice must separate them physically, spatially, and, hopefully as a result, mentally. But where a standard auspistice would merely sit to one side, you and your companion lurk reflected across the space, a pair of sphinxes awaiting wary travelers.

Finally, several minutes late, your prey emerges from the maw of the hallway. Dave slouches in, hood up and hands in pockets, all the mannerisms of a belligerent teenager who only does what he’s told because he understands that it’s more insulting to do something poorly than not at all. He takes the far seat and leans the chair back, propping his feet on the table and acting, for all the world, as if the people of which that world consists are not about to dip their fingers into his mind. Karkat, on the other hand, marches in stiffly – a toy soldier with low-burning rage for a battery. He throws himself into the remaining chair as if it had personally offended him, and pierces you with what he apparently expects to be an intimidating glare.

KARKAT: OK, I GET THE WHOLE AUSPISTICE BULLSHIT THAT’S GOING ON, BUT WHAT THE SPONGECRUSHING GRUBFUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE, LALONDE?   
ROSE: Why, isn’t it obvious? I am assisting Kanaya in her attempts to pry you impassioned miscreants from the wrathful throes of your budding black romance.   
KARKAT: AND WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOUR CREDENTIALS, YOU QUACK?   
ROSE: At the frame shop, of course.   
ROSE: But we’re not here to talk about me.   
KANAYA: Exactly  
KANAYA: Allow Me To Set The Stage  
KANAYA: In One Corner  
KANAYA: Observe If You Will The Young Man Attempting To Singlehandedly Embrace And Reject The Entire World  
KANAYA: A Young Man With Too Much On His Mind To Patiently Bear The Load Of Continuous Social Interaction And Who Turns Toward His Peers In Anger As A Means Of Turning Them Away  
KANAYA: And In The Other Corner  
KANAYA: Kindly Observe Another Young Man In Exactly The Same Position  
KANAYA: Now The Match Begins  
KANAYA: Each Man Circles The Other Noticing How Unusual It Is That His Opponent Reflects His Own Movements Perfectly  
KANAYA: Each Strike Taken Deals As Much Damage To The Attacker As The Receiver  
KANAYA: And When The Battle Is Finally Ended Neither Participant Has Won Because In Defeating His Opponent He Has Ultimately Defeated Himself  
KANAYA: Are You Visualizing This Or Shall I Illustrate It For You  
DAVE: does the illustration involve holding hands around a campfire singing “we are one”   
DAVE: because if so i think ill pass  
KANAYA: Well There Go My Plans For Our Next Session  
DAVE: lemme guess session number three was gonna be an 80s movie marathon followed by group hugs and makeovers  
DAVE: youre gonna love that one karkat  
DAVE: well be living out all your shitty romcom fueled dreams  
KARKAT: FIRST OFF, FUCK YOU. ALL OF YOU.   
KARKAT: SECOND, MY ROMANTIC-PLOT-BASED FILMS ARE EXCELLENT WORKS OF ART AND I’VE ALREADY MADE IT CRYSTAL FUCKING CLEAR TO YOU THAT YOUR LEVEL OF COMPARABLE TALENT IS LOWER THAN THE SHAME GLOBES ON A SCALEBEAST, SO SHUT UP.   
DAVE: see here we go again with the dick metaphors  
DAVE: seriously dude put that shit away i dont wanna see your guilt orbs or nub stems or whatever  
KARKAT: AT LEAST I’M NOT THE ONE WHO CAN’T GO TEN GODDAMN MINUTES WITHOUT MENTIONING HIS OWN ASS.   
DAVE: actually by my watch its been at least eleven minutes  
DAVE: but thank you for providing an opening  
DAVE: so with that graceful introduction by karkat id like you all to take a moment to admire—  
ROSE: Alright, Dave. That’s enough.   
ROSE: Kanaya, may I take the floor for a moment?   
KANAYA: Please Do  
ROSE: Thank you.   
ROSE: Dave, we’re all entirely aware of how choice your ass is. We all pause in our daily reflections to simply remark upon the joy brought to us all by such a tender sight. Truly, it is a wonder to behold: the eighth wonder of the world, to be certain. These are all things we have heard before. No matter how many times you repeat them, they will never cease to be much more than verbal diarrhea, a term which is alarmingly fitting considering your apparent fixation. That specific fixation is one I could analyze all day just to make you squirm.   
ROSE: In fact, it appears that before we can conquer the real root of this problematically combative relationship, we must first confront the branches. One of those branches is, quite clearly, the contention which draws in the aforementioned glutean references like matter to a collapsing star.   
ROSE: A black hole, if you will.   
ROSE: Dave, your probable cause is the most clear, so let’s begin with you.   
DAVE: wait what i wasnt listening  
ROSE: From very near infancy, you were raised by a brother whose wealth and livelihood were supported entirely on the firm foam cheeks of the puppet industry. You spent a childhood seeing “puppet asses jutting out and being all impudent or whatever,” and as a result, whatever part of your subconscious that your imagination draws from has built up a reservoir of not only imagery, but memory.  
ROSE: Your discomfort at these memories of being surrounded by plush rumps has led you to invoke those same images in conflict, in order to make your opponent feel the same level of distress.   
ROSE: If you like, you can think of it this way: Bruce Wayne became Batman to confront his fear of bats. To confront your personal bats, which are represented here as butts, you have become Sir Mix-A-Lot.   
ROSE: You also turn to lavish praise on your own human ass, unconsciously recognizing your idea of the superiority of the human form over, for example, that of puppets – in essence, your subconscious says, “A butt is fine, as long as it’s mine.”   
DAVE: rose  
DAVE: what the actual fuck are you saying right now  
DAVE: did you just call me the batman of butts  
DAVE: buttman  
ROSE: I’m not trying to convince you of anything at this juncture. I’m just trying to help open discussion and elicit some thought from you, so that you can begin to explore your personal causes for all this ridiculous arguing that’s been happening lately. We’ll return to this particular area of interest later; but in the meantime, I’d like you to think about these points and take them into consideration the next time you attempt to derail or instigate an argument by referring to your ass.   
ROSE: You may continue, Kanaya.   
KANAYA: Karkat Now Perhaps We Should Investigate The Outer Branches Of Your Main Sources Of Anger  
KARKAT: OH, WHAT, NOW IT’S MY TURN? THANKS, LADIES, BUT I’LL PASS. I DON’T NEED YOU PRYING YOUR NEEDLING LITTLE FINGERS INTO MY THINK PAN.   
DAVE: hey i just sat through like five straight minutes of rose explaining why she thinks im obsessed with butts  
DAVE: ive well fucking earned a chance to witness your initial humiliation  
DAVE: bring it on troll shrink lay it all on the line  
KANAYA: Actually Dave I Believe You Already Brought Up The Most Significant Point Id Like To Make In Regards To Karkats Personal Inflammatory Speech Patterns  
KANAYA: Those Being Remarkably Similar To Yours In A Sense  
KARKAT: THIS IS HORSEBEASTSHIT—  
KANAYA: Considering The Fact That A Large Majority Of The Insults I Have Witnessed Karkat Spewing Tend To Originate In References To Biological Functions Or Features  
KARKAT: HEY, HOLD THE GRUBSTOMPING COMMUNICATION DEVICE—  
KANAYA: Which Results In A Massive Wave Of Uncomfortable Imagery That Frankly Is Becoming Increasingly Difficult To Listen To After Spending An Uncouth Amount Of Time Hearing It  
KANAYA: Though You Do Not Have An Obvious Root From Your Grub Stages Whence These Reference May Have Evolved It Is A Very Likely Probability That You Latched Onto This Form Of Insult As A Desperate Means Of Attention  
KANAYA: So With The Knowledge That Bodily Functions Are A Reference Which Anyone Could Understand You Sought To Use Those As Egregiously As Possible So That Notice Would Be Made Of You  
KANAYA: In A Social Quandary Due To Your Unfortunately Colored Hatchright And Forced To Decide Between Notoriety And Inconsequence You Chose The Former Because If Someone Was Offended By Your Words Then At Least It Meant They Were Paying Attention  
KANAYA: Karkat You Have Been Remarkably Quiet For The Majority Of My Tirade  
KANAYA: Could It Be That I Have Actually Finally Succeeded In Getting Through To You  
KARKAT: DREAM THE FUCK ON. I’VE BEEN IGNORING YOU FOR LIKE FIVE MINUTES. 

Karkat wrinkles his nose, a subtle enough movement in its own right, but one you recognize as the slightest beginnings of emotional upheaval. A potential prelude to crying, if preludes were considered to begin from the moment an operagoer stepped out of the door of their own house, and advanced by increasing degrees until the actual performance began. All the same, you feel that perhaps enough has been said today. Possibly too much, but it was all important information to lay on the table – and, you admit to yourself, it was just about as much fun as you’d expected. You realize, though, that any more digging into Karkat’s psychological state may break it down entirely; so, with a glance at Kanaya, you move into the closing statements. 

ROSE: Of course you have, Karkat. We understand completely.   
ROSE: Kanaya, unless you have anything else to add, I believe we should let this be the end of the first session. I don’t think there’s much more we can do at this early stage than open up these psychological wounds and lay them bare. Prodding them further now would only infect them, so to speak.   
KANAYA: Quite Right  
KANAYA: I Have To Say Though Im Impressed You Both Stayed Put Through This Whole Session Dave And Karkat  
KANAYA: Perhaps There Is More To Be Said For Willing Participation Than You Had Initially Believed  
KANAYA: At Any Rate If Your Presence Continues To Be This Active We May In Fact Be Able To Avoid Real Black Proclivity Before It Even Presents Itself  
KARKAT: IF YOU KEEP RANTING OUR GODDAMN EARS OFF, WE WON’T BE ABLE TO DO SHIT, DOCTOR ASSHAT. I THINK YOU’VE SPOUTED ENOUGH FOAMING BILGE OUT YOUR SEEDFLAP TO LAST US AN ENTIRE NEW FUCKING GAME SESSION, LET ALONE ONE OF THESE BULLSHIT EXCUSES FOR AUSPISTICESHIP.   
DAVE: yeah im actually gonna have to agree with the shouting douchebag over here  
DAVE: since yall are done talking about how much we both love asses or whatever im ollying the everloving fuck outta here  
DAVE: later

With that entirely graceless exit speech, Dave hops up from his chair, letting it topple backwards with a muffled rattle of wood on carpeted floor. His cape swishes behind him as he all but storms out of the room – too slowly to look like real anger, but too quickly to be a casual exit: treading the perfect line between exposed reality and the slowly fracturing façade he continually presents. You let your lips curve into a small smile; Dave will definitely dwell on your words. He isn’t going to like it, but you know he needs to confront it at some point. It might as well be now. 

KARKAT: WHAT THE HELL, LALONDE, ARE YOU SMILING? YOU SICK FUCK.   
ROSE: My apologies, Karkat. I’m simply glad to see that apparently I’ve gotten through to my brother finally, at least on some level.   
KARKAT: YEAH, WHATEVER YOU SAY. JUST TRY AND JUSTIFY YOUR SADISM, I DARE YOU.   
ROSE: Chalk it up as simple schadenfreude, if you like.   
KARKAT: THERE’S NOTHING TO LIKE ABOUT THAT. 

He, unlike Dave, actually does storm out, apparently feeling as though he’s left on a clever note. You turn to Kanaya and let out a dramatic sigh, as if heaving the emotional weight of the world off your chest. 

ROSE: Well?   
KANAYA: That Was All Certainly  
KANAYA: Something  
ROSE: Shall we discuss our respective professional opinions on today’s session, or save our notes for later?   
KANAYA: Later I Think  
KANAYA: Right Now I Believe The Time Is Particularly Ripe For A Nap  
KANAYA: Would You Care To Join Me  
ROSE: Oh, most certainly. 

You gather up your supplies, making sure the purple ink in your notebook is dry before closing it, and head out of the room. Kanaya follows in your wake, and you notice that her usually vivid luminosity is dim with fatigue. Discussion of the emotional issues of your peers can most certainly wait until after a good, long nap. 


	3. Chapter 3

[KARKAT]  
Your belligerent storming pace blusters out into your usual stiff-shouldered shuffle once you break free of the poisonous atmosphere of some of the only friends you have left. You head for your favorite abandoned junk block on the third level, where you used to sequester yourself in times of great need. A few sweeps have passed since you last bunkered down in there, but the time has come again to lose yourself among your fellow rejected pieces of shit.

You open the door at the end of a long and dusty hallway to a block brimming with the alchemized garbage everyone made and forgot about. Multiple sweeps of impulsive ideas and a shitload of grist made for a lot of alchemizing, and a lot of the crap you guys made wasn’t even useful. By the looks of it, the humans have contributed some of their own refuse: oddly-colored liquids in round bottles, flat wheel devices shedding skins of metaphysical artifacts, dented nutrition cylinders, haphazard stacks of books with boring titles, and other useless shit. You wander through the piles aimlessly, kicking broken weapons and outgrown clothing out of the way. In a far corner you spot a heaping pile of the most hideous pillows you’ve ever seen, upholstered in appalling printed menagerie of smuppets, misshapen squiddles, and those idiotic pixelated characters from Dave’s comic. You hate that shitty comic. You hate Dave.

You turn away from the pillows, ignoring the blinding array of Sweet Bros leering at you through beady, lopsided lookstubs. All you want right now is a comfortable place to hole up for a while and wait for the oozing scabs Kanaya and Rose picked off your psyche to congeal. You don’t want to think about anything they said. You don’t want to think about them at all, but you can’t help it. They’re just guessing, you tell yourself. They’re just making wild guesses and predictably pointing out your most obvious flaws, because that’s all anybody ever sees, and because it’s so much simpler to pick on the lowest member of the food chain, and because you make yourself a really fucking easy target. You are paranoid enough to assume that Kanaya has probably been saving up all those underhanded hints about your blood color for sweeps, waiting for the right time to line you up in front of her psychological firing squad and shred your self-esteem to pieces.

Well, you don’t need her. You don’t need anybody. And you certainly don’t need a couple of interfering little shrews trying to auspisticize you. So what if you argue? So what if you’ve spent nearly a sweep trying to verbally flay the weird fallow skin off Dave’s smirking face? It sure as hell doesn’t mean you’re waxing caliginous for him, because if that isn’t the most insufferably idiotic idea that ever crawled out of a clogged load gaper and slimed all over someone’s think pan, you’ll eat your own horns. It’s not that kind of hate, dammit, and you should know. You are the expert on hate around here. And then there’s Rose. What the hell does a human know about auspisticeship and kismesitude anyway? Nothing, that’s what. She’s a crock.

But all the same, you begrudgingly acknowledge that she and Kanaya made some points that hit closer to home than you’d ever willingly admit out loud, Kanaya especially. You spend a nasty moment reflecting on the uncanny similarity between her name and the word “conniver,” and you decide that that quality is exactly what made every one of her past relationships fail. You conclude snidely that her inability to successfully navigate the quadrant system disqualifies her from judging yours.

You’re struck with the urge to throw something, mostly for something to do other than spin angry circles around your own sponge, but nothing readily presents itself. As a last resort, you yank off your shoe and heave it at a stack of Rose’s journals squatting a few feet in front of you. The stack topples with an unsatisfactory, quiet thud, the sound deadened by the flexibility of all the paper. Journals skid out across the floor like stepping-stones. Resigned to a kind of weary curiosity at what kind of bullshit they could contain, you crouch to look at them. Each one is marked with a title in neat purple cursive, though most are no more interesting than “Journal #17” or “Meteor Notes: Year One, Part Five.” There are a couple more intriguingly-named ones, though, and you gather them up and return to the pillows. You have to get your mind off how miserable you are somehow; you figure you might as well gather some potential mockery material for Lalonde at the same time.

You pick one at random and squint to decipher the title through the looping script: “KV Character Study Extrapolation.” Sounds like a crock of horseshit to you. You flip to the first page and bolster yourself against the task of wading through Rose’s worthless prolixity.

_There once lived a young boy named Frankfort Georgenheimer Spleedenvonschlessinger the Eight Hundred and Forty-Fifth. He was not a particularly bright boy, nor particularly handsome, nor distinctive in any measure at all._

You are rewarded for your initial cynicism with the complete and total fulfillment of your expectations.

_His birth name, a frightful ordeal in its own right, was his sole distinctive quality, a fact which was lent irony by the long history of men before him who had borne the exact same name. He spent many a long, wakeful night languishing in agony on his cotton sheets, arranging and rearranging the letters of his name into grandiose but ultimately meaningless anagrams which served as metaphors for the inevitable vacuum of significance that his life was destined to be. To his great misfortune, he was resigned to the possession of his birth name, for he stood at the end of an irrationally long line of ancestors whose name he had unwillingly inherited. Eight hundred and forty-four preceding Frankfort Georgenheimer Spleedenvonschlessingers had maintained the spiritual gusto necessary to survive life with such a humiliating name; and Frankfort Georgenheimer Spleedenvonschlessinger the Eight Hundred and Forty-Fifth could never again face his family if he admitted the vast emptiness that threatened to swallow him whole every time he wrote his name on a school assignment, or every time he introduced himself to a peer, or even every time he chanced to catch his own brilliant jade-green eye in the mirror—an eye with which he could never bring himself to identify, for it was the inherited shade of Spleedenvonschlessinger green. He loathed every beat of his heart, every hair on his head, every cell in his body, for it was the body of a Spleedenvonschlessinger._

You let out a snort of derision, and resolve to blackmail Rose to the fullest extent possible with this material.

_He grew bitter, his heart soured by contempt not only for a string of ancestors he invariably interpreted as brazen fools, but also himself, for being the literal embodiment of the cruelty required to give eight hundred and forty-four children the same uncouth, unsightly, ungodly name. Though he was but a young whelp of ten, Frankfort grew shriveled and brittle and rude, aged far beyond his years by the volcano of hatred slowly bubbling up through his chest. He snarled at his parents, who were reduced to cower in fear every time he entered the kitchen for breakfast; he snapped at his friends, who, one by one, abandoned him for less spiteful playmates; and eventually, he was forced to turn on the only victim within reach: himself. He set upon himself like a pack of starved wolves._

This is incredibly stupid. You flip ahead a couple of pages.

_Frankfort was fed up with the wheedling taunts of schoolyard bullies. The fuse of his explosive temper was incomparably short, and perpetually lit. These two unbathed scoundrels were the straw that broke the horse’s back; the horse was, in this case, carrying another load of explosives, which were set off by his anger. The combination of unstable metaphors reacted like a firecracker in Frankfort’s mind, and he responded in due form, leaping off the monkey bars and landing roughly on the corpulent stomach of the first bully. Frankfort scrambled to his feet and assumed an attack position: feet splayed apart, arms held close to his sides, face twisted into a violent animalistic snarl._

_“Don’t you dare call me ‘hot dog,’ you paunchy toads,” Frankfort spat, then rejoined the comment by literally spitting at their feet. “If I hear one more word from you, I swear, I’ll rip your bones from their sockets and smash them to bits under a steamroller, you feckless, maggot-eating whoresons!”_

You’ve had enough. You were right: this is one of the most ostentatiously asinine excuses for literature you’ve ever had the masochistic gall to leer sideways at like a grub trying to read a naughty magazine. You’re not sure where that metaphor ended up, but you’d rather not think it through. But you realize with a certain amount of horror that it sounds like the ghosts of Lalonde’s nail-bitten digits are still tinkering in your head and driving your sentences away from the obstreperously obscene and towards more obscure linguistic avenues. No, stop it. These aren’t your kinds of sentences. She’s infecting you. Fuck. There, that’s better. Shit. Stack up a bunch of those curses in your mind to keep her out. A whole stack of fucks and shits. A fuck-shit stack. That’ll do it.

You’re getting really tired of this absurd internal monologue, and of arguing with yourself. You experience a mild epiphany against your will, which unfolds as the realization that maybe you argue with everyone else to drown yourself out. The notion resonates with a distinct air of Lalonde-and-Maryam and you barely resist the urge to punch yourself in the face. You need some Karkat time. No, you need some nobody time. You need to lose yourself for a while, in a better mode of fiction than Rose’s godawful attempts at narrative. Maybe a movie will make you feel better.

As you put your shoe back on, your eye catches again on the sprawled remains of the pile of journals. You consider leaving them behind, to better quarantine yourself from the debilitating mental disease that is Rose’s fiction, but somehow you find yourself scooping up an armful. Maybe you can burn them in an exorcism ritual and rid the world of their plague.

On your way out the door, you bump into the Mayor, probably looking for more cans for his neatly organized failure of an empire. Sorry, you mean democracy. You tell him you remember seeing a couple of cans in the junk block, and he claps his hands together excitedly before ducking behind you through the door. You can’t bring yourself to dislike the little guy, no matter how hard you try and how often he hangs out with Dave and Terezi. There’s just something so sincere about him, a quality you have a remarkably small amount of experience with given that your culture decided to internalize sarcasm and deceit instead. Your experiences with troll society have led you to conclude that it’s just a bunch of people actively trying to be bigger jerks than everyone else, and it’s a wonder it hasn’t fallen apart. Well, it has now, since everyone’s dead, but you try not to think about that. You head for your respiteblock to curl up in the embrace of celluloid fantasy, because it has become apparent that you have way too many things to not think about.


	4. Chapter 4

[KANAYA]  
Your name is Kanaya Maryam, and you are putting your foot down.

It’s far past time for something to be done about those churlish rabble-rousers, and it’s up to you to do it. Meddling in the ashen conciliatory quadrant is a messy business, a fact of which you are very much aware. Trying to maintain balance between blackrom adversaries is difficult, dangerous, and unrewarding, but you are inexorably drawn to it. Your past failures in this department haunt your memory, but you are hopeful that this time, maybe, it might just work out. You are well-attuned to the signs of caliginosity, and as far as you can tell, Karkat and Dave just don’t have the shame globes to handle it. All that’s left is to make them realize this.

Aided by Rose, you have made graphs and written short essays to outline your thoughts on the apparently budding black romance between your friends, and you have reached a twofold conclusion on why it needs to be stopped. The first, and more superficial reason, is that you are sick and tired of being constantly assaulted by their pointless shouting matches, and they need to shut their gaping word holes before you sew them shut out of desperation. The second reason is one you are still figuring out how exactly to phrase. You want it to be just right, so that you can present it to your friends at another conciliation session and force open their eyes about what obnoxious little shits they’re being. Its current, nebulous definition is something equal parts sappy and irate, and involves numerous bodily threats unless they come to their inadequate senses and learn about the goddamn spirit of friendship so that they will be prepared when the meteor reaches its destination.

However, you have a third, secret reason for involving yourself: you’re afraid. You’re afraid of what the potential negative concupiscence will do to Dave, a human uninitiated to the emotional labyrinths of quadrant romance. You’re afraid that the incessant bickering will destroy not only his and Karkat’s friendship, but that of everyone else confined to the meteor and forced to tolerate them. Foremost, though, you’re afraid of whatever mental monster can take two young people, whose personal histories sport huge veins of sympathy and kindness, and grind them together so easily into angry dust. Not long ago, you expressed this exact analogy to Rose, who commented wryly on the aptness of the image of grinding a couple of rocks against each other as a metaphor for Karkat and Dave’s relationship. You detected a certain lewd double meaning to her words that you couldn’t entirely grasp, and wrote it off as a reference to human anatomical slang.

With a wordless huff of frustration, you close the large tome you have been holding in your lap, unread, for the past half hour. Rose looks up from the bookshelf across the room, where she stands ankle-deep in yarn and rumpled T-shirts, and you notice a sympathetic half-smile playing at the corner of her lips. The two of you had relocated to her room earlier in the day, partly because she claimed to have a violin song to show you, and partly for a few more private reasons. You had enjoyed the pleasant distraction, but it didn’t last; you kept finding yourself irrevocably returning to the issue at hand.

KANAYA: Why Cant They Just Grow Up And Shove It Down Their Protein Chutes

Rose chuckles softly and crosses the room to sit in your chair, stretching her legs perpendicularly across yours.

ROSE: That wouldn’t solve anything in the long run, though. You and I know there’s something deeper driving all of this consternation, and despite my earlier jests, the source is something far less tangible and far more significant than a bunch of butt jokes: puberty.  
ROSE: Really, this case isn’t much different from the things every kid or troll goes through at our age. The inner struggle of adulthood usurping childhood is everyone’s burden upon reaching maturity. Even we are experiencing this turmoil, albeit at a more controlled level.  
ROSE: I think at a certain point we have to ask ourselves what we actually hope to accomplish by essentially trying to cure puberty.  
KANAYA: I Understand What Youre Saying  
KANAYA: But Im Not Sure You Grasp The Severity Of Caliginous Relationships Or Their Destructive Possibilities  
ROSE: You still think Karkat might actually be trying to initiate a real blackrom rivalry?  
KANAYA: No  
KANAYA: I Think Hes Internalized His Own Interpretation Of Kismesitude To The Extent That It Has Become A Natural Means For The Expression Of His Anger  
ROSE: So he’s unconsciously stoking a caliginous flame because it is the most effective form of hatred he can comprehend. He has driven himself to view Dave as the embodiment of everything he despises and seeks to destroy him, which in turn attracts him to that hated vessel because the interaction paradoxically fuels and satiates his animosity. Am I getting closer?  
KANAYA: Something Like That  
KANAYA: But I Think The Particular Issue Here Is That Its Not Necessarily Specific To His Treatment Of Dave  
KANAYA: Because What Stands Out To Me As The Most Alarming Element Of All Of This  
KANAYA: In Regards To Karkat At Least  
KANAYA: Is His Obvious Desire To Wound As Much As Possible And As Many People As Possible  
KANAYA: Which Despite Being Not That Different From His Usual Conduct In A General Sense Is Still Shocking In Its Vehemence  
ROSE: The way I’ve heard it from John and Dave suggests that vehemence is practically a tenet of Karkat’s personal philosophy. Might this just be another case of his tendency to overreact getting more out of hand than usual?  
KANAYA: Thats True He Does Get Pretty Intense  
KANAYA: But Believe It Or Not He Is Actually Quite Nice At Times  
KANAYA: He Has Almost Always Been Exceptionally Polite To Me  
ROSE: I believe it. Even he seems a little uncomfortable with the amount of viciousness he’s been handing out lately.  
ROSE: What do you propose, then? How do we approach this?  
KANAYA: I Fear He May Be Projecting His Internal Anger Onto Dave Not Out Of Any Specific Dislike For Dave But Because He Provided A Convenient Vehicle  
KANAYA: This Is Why I Believe Relieving Him Of This Pent Up Aggression Is Of The Utmost Importance  
KANAYA: Not Only Is He Destroying The Potential For Friendship Among His Peers But Hes Also Destroying Himself  
ROSE: Yes, you said as much in the first session. I think we’ve definitely got the identification of the issue down pat.  
ROSE: But how do we help him “relieve this pent-up aggression” while simultaneously going out of our way to prevent him from consummating it?  
KANAYA: Thats The Problem  
KANAYA: I Dont Know Yet  
KANAYA: The Impasse Stage Of Auspisticeship Is Always The Most Frustrating  
KANAYA: It Is Far Easier To Identify The Problem Than It Is To Solve It  
ROSE: I’m sure you’ll think of something.  
KANAYA: I Hope So

Rose gives you a gentle sideways hug and a peck on the cheek for encouragement.

ROSE: In the meantime, may I recommend a new tactic?  
KANAYA: Whats That  
ROSE: Perhaps your current inability to illuminate a clear solution to the problem lies in your approach. You’ve professed repeatedly that this is obviously a problem of kismesic origins, but you’re still failing to take the human element into account.  
ROSE: Karkat may unconsciously be confronting his anger in a manner understood to be “romantic,” I’ll grant you that. But Dave? Dave is a textbook case of the angst-ridden teenage rebel sans cause, and no library of alien romance novels will lend us aid in that battle.  
KANAYA: This Is Not A Character Trope With Which I Have Much Experience At Least Not In The Terms You Have Used To Describe It  
KANAYA: But I Trust Your Judgment Where Your Brother Is Concerned  
KANAYA: So I Am Willing To Explore This Prototypical Unmotivated Young Insurgent If You Believe It Will Be Of Use  
KANAYA: Where Do We Begin  
ROSE: Allow me to provide you with some case studies.

Smirking, Rose hops off your lap and goes back to her bookshelf. She peruses it for a moment, selects a few volumes, and returns to drop them unceremoniously on your lap. You survey the titles: _The Catcher in the Rye, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Lord of the Flies, The Great Gatsby_. You had forgotten how confusingly vague human titles are compared to the prose-worthy descriptions that Alternian entertainment made standard for all its mediums.

ROSE: The human education system includes a several-year incarceration in a series of social torture chambers known as “high school,” where the atmosphere is so thick with teenage angst that not only is it tangible in the air, but it pervades the entirety of English class curricula. These are just a few of the novels typically assigned to students in the grade that Dave and I would currently be in, had the entire planet not been decimated.  
ROSE: As such, these readings should certainly come in handy in trying to chisel through Dave’s well-practiced shield of implacability and expose the angsty core within.  
KANAYA: Shall We Put The Kismesis Theory On Hold For Now Then  
ROSE: Oh, not entirely. I agree with you that it may be a large part of Karkat’s influence.  
ROSE: But it’s only one side of the story, so to speak.  
ROSE: With any luck, once we familiarize ourselves with these tropes of angst, Dave, and hopefully Karkat, will become an open book to us.  
ROSE: Suffice to say, I believe we may soon achieve novel results.  
ROSE: ;)


End file.
